Why are whistleblowers important

Whistleblowers expose fraud and are an essential part of rooting out misuse of tax dollars.

Federal and state governments spend trillions of dollars on a wide variety of goods and services. These tax dollars help pay for airports, pharmaceuticals, and scientific research, among many others. However, some of these vendors fail to keep their part of the bargain and sell the government defective goods or inadequate services.

Private citizens who know that the government is being defrauded by these unscrupulous vendors can help expose the fraud and waste of taxpayer money. Since 1986, whistleblowers have used the False Claims Act to expose fraud and save taxpayers more than $28 billion.

Whistleblowers not only save taxpayer money, but they can also save lives when the defective goods or inadequate services include such things as poorly constructed highway guardrails or improper drug sales practices. Whistleblowers help expose these violations and save lives.

Whistleblowers who expose fraud and bring wrongdoing to the government’s attention do so at the risk of retaliation, including termination, harassment, lawsuits and more. For this reason, whistleblowers who expose wrongdoing are afforded protections and sizeable portions of any recovery. For example, whistleblowers can obtain up to 30% of whatever the government ultimately recoups. As a result, whistleblowers have earned billions of dollars for outing government fraud.